Spotlight Sites

The decorations are all put away. The fog of the New Year's Eve party has lifted. Life has returned to something resembling a normal schedule. 2011 is now with us and poised to be a great year for you. That is, if you choose to make it a great year. Rather than let the year slip away why not plan to learn more about Lightroom? Lightroom can appear to be a simple and straight-forward application. But don't be fooled. There are subtleties and nuances in every module. It is a rich program with a lot to offer. Let's explore it more in 2011. Don't call it a resolution to learn more about Lightroom (because we all know what happens to New Year's resolutions). Just work it into your regular routine.

To assist you here are a few suggestions for things to explore further.

There's a new kid on the photo-sharing block. Say hello to Yogile. (Luckily for me this isn't a podcast because I have no idea how to pronounce Yogile.) If you thought it was easy to share photos before... you won't believe how easy it is now! This is one of those ideas that is so sublimely simple you say to yourself, "Now why didn't I think of that!" With Yogile you can set up public or private photo albums. Each album gets a unique URL and email address. Share those with your friends and family and now any of them can easily view or add images. They don't even need to sign in or open an account of their own! Photos can be uploaded via the website or sent by email. It's super simple.

OpenStructs -- an education and distribution site dedicated to open source software for converting, managing, viewing and manipulating structured data. TinkerPop -- many (often open source) tools for graph data. Polaroid a Day -- a moving human story told in photographs. Prizes (PDF) -- White House memorandum to government agencies explaining how prizes are to be used. The first...

It's been a long ride full of adventure and discovery from Lightroom 3 Beta through Lightroom 3 Beta 2 to Lightroom 3. Along the way we all made suggestions and requests. Adobe listened. If one of your suggestions didn't make it into this version don't worry. This won't be the last version of Lightroom. I am confident that we have a lot of new and exciting things in the future. For now, let's get comfortable with Lightroom 3!

As with any version of Lightroom it all begins with Import. And this time around we have an entirely new and improved import feature. While this has been the source of some consternation and controversy, once you dig in and look at what's new here I think you'll be on board.

Have you ever wanted to create an authentic looking Andy Warhol silkscreen? One of the most influential artists of the 20th century, Warhol was known for his avant-garde paintings and screenprintings. Remember Warhols garishly colored celebrity images of Marilyn Monroe, Elizabeth Taylor, or Mao Zedong? In the studio he called The Factory, Warhol took an assembly-line approach to his high-contrast, silkscreens and produced art as a mass consumable, like a t-shirt or a pack of gum. Its not surprising that his art is still popular today, and there are lots of one-click Warhol solutions. But if you want the real thing, join Deke McClelland in the final episode of this dekePod series, as he dissects Warhols process, and shows you how to use Photoshop to render your favorite portrait in bona-fide Warhol magnificence.

Signs are our friends. They help us observe the rules when we actually need to know the rules. We dont all speak English, and tourism is a huge industry, so signs need to be language-independent. Which is why a vocabulary of immediately identifiable symbols is essential to every working artist and designer. So if symbols are so important, why are most such an indecipherable mess? Computer icons! Laundry instructions! Or Dekes favorite: What you shouldnt throw into an airplane toilet! Learn what works and what doesnt in this laugh-out-loud episode of dekePod.

The ocean is a different world. Where else can you cavort with colorful animals a thousand feet or more above the Earths surface? But the romance of the sea comes at a price. Just as the watery depths rob our lungs of air, they rob our eyes of color. Its not uncommon for an underwater photo to lack any information in the Red channel. Which is where coral, clown fish, and our very own skin tones live. Fortunately, Deke knows how to summon a Red channel back from the dead. Watch this dekePod and learn how to create underwater images that will satisfy your inner Jacques Cousteau.

If you use Photoshop, then you probably browse your images with Adobes Bridge, which shows you thumbnails of your files. Good news: The Bridge lets you preview images without going to the trouble of opening them. Bad news: Those previews result in large cache files that eat up your hard drive. Worse yet, they permit others to track what youve been looking at. Even if youve long since destroyed the original file, the thumbnail persists! Learn how to protect yourselfand maybe even save your job.

Adobe's landmark pen tool defined an industry. But to the uninitiated, its reliance on anchor points and control handles makes it as approachable as first-year algebra. Until you see it's nothing more than a mating ritual: The points are boys and the handles are girls. Once you get that, it all falls into place.

How best to encourage people to use an obscure but super-useful Photoshop feature? Rhyme, rhythm, and romance. Hence a music video that will make all your automation dreams come true. Give Deke five minutes of your time and hell set your world on fire.